It's what everyone anticipated for weeks and it's going to happen for the third time in four years.

The Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens will go at it again in the first-round of the Stanley Cup playoffs as the best-of-7 series opens Thursday at TD Garden.

Boston claimed the third seed in the Eastern Conference standings with a 46-25-11 record while Montreal finished sixth (44-30-8).

It's been a season full of heated drama between the two clubs. One of the most epic matches of the season was the Feb. 9 brawl which led to 182 shared penalty minutes and a goalie joust between Bruins' Tim Thomas and Habs' Carey Price in the same game.

The most controversial of them was when Boston captain Zdeno Chara checked Max Pacioretty into the turnbuckle at the Bell Centre March 8, which gave him a severe concussion and fractured fourth cervical vertebrae in his neck.

Notes: In their six meetings this season, the Bruins and Habs have combined for 337 penalty minutes...Carey Price started all six games for Montreal and had a 3.46 goals against average and .899 save percentage. Price led the league in wins (38) and was second in minutes played (4,206)...The Bruins fought more against Montreal than any other opponent this season (10 fights)...The Boston and Montreal have met more times in the playoffs (33) than any other two teams in the NHL.

SAN JOSE vs. LOS ANGELESThursday: at San Jose, 10 Saturday: at San Jose, 10 Tuesday, April 19: at Los Angeles, 10:30Thursday, April 21: at Los Angeles, 10:30 x-Saturday, April 23: at San Jose, 10:30 x-Monday, April 25: at Los Angeles, TBD x-Wednesday, April 27: at San Jose, TBDx-if necessary